The government plans to adopt a fiscal 2017 general account budget that’s worth more than ¥97 trillion, which would set a new record, sources said Friday. The budget will exceed the previous year’s initial budget for the fifth consecutive year, the sources said. The ...

Japan’s defense budget could rise to a record of around ¥5.1 trillion ($44.64 billion) in fiscal 2017 amid security challenges from China and North Korea, a government source said. Defense spending has been on an uptrend since fiscal 2013, when the budget was compiled ...

A Finance Ministry panel urged the government Thursday to make elderly people with higher incomes pay more for medical treatment as part of efforts to improve fiscal discipline amid Japan’s rapidly graying society. “In pursuit of restoring fiscal health, the biggest challenge is the ...

In this flat, windy expanse just south of the Canadian border, U.S. Air Force pilots fly the same bombers their grandfathers flew, using mid-20th century cables and pulleys. Each spring, the airmen and airwomen must clear melting snow from the steel and concrete doors ...

Government budget requests for fiscal 2017 totaled ¥101.47 trillion, topping ¥100 trillion for the third straight year, the Finance Ministry said Tuesday. The requests for the general account budget for the year that will start next April 1 were bigger than the initial budget ...

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism is asking for ¥6.665 trillion in its general account budget request for fiscal 2017, up 15.4 percent from last year’s initial budget. Of the requested total, ¥6.018 trillion would go toward public works-related spending, up 16.2 ...

Budget requests by Japan’s central government offices for a new fiscal year from next April are expected to exceed ¥101 trillion ($1 trillion), government sources said Thursday. The requests for the general-account budget for fiscal 2017 will top ¥100 trillion for the third straight ...

A call by an influential Kansai business group for the Osaka prefectural and municipal governments to increase their budgets for art and culture has sparked debate between the governor and business circles over how to best do that. Earlier this month, the Kansai Association ...

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga instructed government ministries Thursday to include “effective and bold” measures to lure more foreign tourists in their budget requests for fiscal 2017. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s administration has set a target of 40 million foreign visitors in 2020, when ...

Costs already paid for 40 of the 41 overseas trips made by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe since the launch of his second administration in December 2012 total around ¥8.77 billion, a Cabinet statement showed Tuesday. According to the statement, issued in response to a ...

The head of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management says it’s time to admit his agency has a $1 billion problem. BLM Director Neil Kornze says the administration can’t afford to wage an increasingly uphill battle to protect the ecological health of federal rangeland ...